As any reader of the site knows, we’re big fans of Imogen Poots, and we’ll just go ahead and say that she’s the secret weapon of both the upcoming “A Late Quartet” and “Greetings From Tim Buckley,” which premiered at TIFF last month. Her star is on the rise, as she’s been seen rubbing elbows with Terrence Malick in “Knight Of Cups.” And now she’s landed her first bona fide blockbuster movie.

The actress had joined “Breaking Bad” star Aaron Paul in “Need For Speed,” and she won’t be just hanging off someone’s arm. The actress will play an exotic car dealer for the wealthy, in a movie that will apparently nod to ’70s car culture. “Act of Valor” co-helmer Scott Waugh will direct, with a script from George Gatins, which is based on a story he conceived with his brother John Gatins (“Flight,” “Real Steel“), and lest you think these guys don’t know their exhaust valve from their fuel pumps, guess again.

“I’m a car freak,” John Gatins told us at the Savannah Film Festival last weekend, as he explained how he came aboard the film. “I really love cars, and my agents said to me, ‘Do you know the videogame ‘Need For Speed?’ and I said, ‘Yeah I Do.’ And they were like ‘Well, Electronic Arts is curious about developing it into a movie.’ So my brother and I cracked a story — because there’s no narrative in the game — so we applied a narrative to it and we developed a script.”

“It’s been kind of a magical thing,” he said about the development the film, which will see him serve as a producer. Gears are being shifted, but Paul and Poots in one movie? That sounds great to us. “Need For Speed” changes lanes on February 7, 2014. [THR]